Bodies in the sea: Halifax recalls Titanic sinking

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia (Reuters) - Canadian sailors spotted the tiny body floating among icebergs six days after the Titanic sank.

The 19-month-old boy was wearing four layers of clothing and a pair of leather shoes - a futile shield against the icy waters but the best a parent could do as the liner foundered.

The Unknown Child, as the infant became known, now lies in a graveyard with many other Titanic victims in the Atlantic Canadian port city of Halifax, which had to deal with the ghastly aftermath of a calamity that killed about 1,500 people.

After the disaster most eyes were on New York, where the 700 or so survivors landed and told their stories.

Yet it was Halifax that sent out ships to pick up the bodies, turned an ice rink into a morgue and interred the dead in three cemeteries.

"They built it in Belfast, sank it in the Atlantic and we buried it. In that sense, one very final part of the Titanic story is right here in Halifax," said local author Alan Ruffman.

The story of the Titanic still resonates in Halifax, which has many visible reminders of what was the worst peacetime maritime disaster ever: 150 graves, more than 20 sites linked to the recovery effort and dozens of artifacts.

A century after the liner hit an iceberg and sank on April 15, 1912, the city of 300,000 is holding a series of concerts, readings and other events to mark the occasion.

TITANIC THEMES

Special Titanic-related menus will be on offer at some local restaurants, one of which was a funeral home where victims were taken. Walking tours help visitors recreate the path of the bodies from wharf to morgue to undertaker to church to grave.

In the early hours of Sunday April 15, the moment the pride of the White Star Line went down some 700 nautical miles to the east, a moment of silence will be held, followed by flares shooting through the night sky.

Halifax had no connection to the Titanic, which was built in Belfast and sailed from Southampton for New York on its maiden voyage. Yet it was the best place for the recovery effort.

The port of St. John's in Newfoundland was closer to the disaster, but harder to reach, and it did not have enough undertakers.

"It was just easier to get on a train in Boston, New York, Montreal or Toronto and come to Halifax," said local historian Blair Beed.

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Please see graphic, Titanic 100 years:

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The city's hotels and boarding houses filled up as undertakers, reporters and relatives poured into the city, few able to quite comprehend what had happened.

"(This is) the worst marine disaster there has ever been. People are simply astounded by the terrible news," Halifax museum curator Harry Piers wrote in his diary.

The White Star Line chartered vessels to recover the bodies. The cable ship Mackay-Bennett set sail on April 17 with a minister, undertakers, coffins, canvas bags, 100 tonnes of ice and all of the embalming fluid in Halifax.

The ship's crew - who drew double pay - found the first victims early on April 21.

"Recovered 51 bodies, 46 men, four women and one baby ... bodies in good shape but badly bruised by being knocked about in the water," crew member Cliff Crease noted in his diary that day.

BURIED AT SEA

The ship eventually picked up 306 bodies, but a shortage of embalming fluid meant 116 were buried at sea. As the ship approached Halifax harbor on April 30 with its somber cargo, church and fire bells rang throughout the town.

"The SS Mackay-Bennett was coming in with her decks and hold piled with dead picked up at sea from the terrible Titanic disaster," Piers wrote. "It cast a heavy gloom over Halifax and interest in the tragedy now centers here."

Men working on the waterfront took off their caps as the ship passed by.

"Many of the shops had purple and black bunting - which are the signs of mourning - in their window displays ... all of the public buildings had their flags at half mast," said Garry Shutlak of the Nova Scotia Archives.

Horse-drawn hearses pulled the dead - some in coffins, some in sacks - to a temporary morgue in the Mayflower Curling Rink, where undertaker Frank Newell was working. He uncovered one victim and collapsed.

The body was that of his uncle Arthur Newell.

At least Frank could put a name to the corpse. More than a quarter of the victims buried in Halifax remain anonymous.